The south of Sardinia is not all beaches. Inland, on the edge of the Gerrei hills, lies Pranu Mutteddu, a flat upland of granite, cork oak and scrub that holds one of the island's more striking prehistoric sites. The name means something like the plain of the little stones in Sardinian, and the place is known for its menhirs, standing stones raised several thousand years ago by Neolithic people, many of them still upright and arranged in rows or groups across the clearing.
The stones are a puzzle. There are dozens of them, some a couple of metres tall, and archaeologists believe they were bound up with burial and ritual, since the site also holds a number of small stone tombs and what look like funerary chambers. The people who built them left no writing, so what we have is shape and position: lines of grey slabs under the open sky, a great deal of space, and silence broken only by cicadas and the occasional tractor in the distance.
The ride in is part of the experience. The roads in this part of Sardinia leave the main highways behind and wind through the Flumendosa valley, with tight bends, hairpins on the climbs and the odd stretch of broken asphalt where the mountain has slumped onto the road. Traffic is almost non-existent, which is both a pleasure and a reason to be careful, because a mechanical problem will not have many witnesses. The Mulargia lake is not far off, and the road towards Villasalto and the Sarrabus mountains gives quiet, shaded riding among eucalyptus and holm oak.
Goni and Silius are very small villages, and fuel is not something to count on in either. Dolianova, about twenty-three kilometres off, is the nearest town with a proper range of services, and it is worth filling the tank there before you head into the hills. Take water with you in summer, because the plain has little shade and the sun is fierce from June to September. Spring is the best time, when the grass is green and wildflowers spread across the ground between the stones.